I shall be home from Cyprus, busy unpacking and opening all the mail and Google Reader is shutting down.Please don't shut me down too!If you follow Tinned Tomatoes on Google Reader, then please remember to re-follow me on another service.

I recommend Bloglovin' and here is my page, just take a moment to sign up and then when it asks you to follow 5 blogs to get started, just type Tinned Tomatoes in the search box. The top entry (white one) is the one to follow. It's a very easy service to use.We are enjoying our last couple of days in Cyprus and trying not to think too much about going home. We have had such a relaxing time here, although you will notice I am still blogging and writing for Baby Centre. You can take the blogger on holiday.........

I have to admit it, I'm not a tennis fan. I really don't know much about it and I was rubbish at it at school, but Wimbledon is here and the excitement is in the air.

I'm in Cyprus at the moment with my husband and little boy and we are staying with my husband's parents who are great tennis fans. The tennis is playing all day, on the tv, through iplayer on the PC.

I don't have a clue about the scores or what any of it means, but I'm still willing Andy Murray to win. A good Scottish lad.

We're waiting for his next game or is it called match? It's the second round, I am told patiently by my mother-in-law Jean and he is playing Chinese Ten-Hsun Lu on court one. How many courts are there?

So in honour of this rather super young tennis player I'm sharing some of my best strawberry recipes.

I first made it for cake club, but I have made it again and everyone loves it.

A classic victoria sponge filled with jam and cream
and topped off with a wonderful mound of eton mess. The final touch was a
strawberry crown and a meringue quiff.

Let's end with a cocktail and one of the best I have ever had. Fresh strawberries, strawberry & elderflower cordial, elderflower pressé, vodka and ice.

My husband and I enjoyed a jug of this one child-free evening. It was lush!

If like me you don't want to miss out on Wimbledon and you don't have a clue what is going on, print out this Wimbledon bingo card from Ladbrokes and score them off as you go. Make sure you have a treat to reward yourself with, if you call bingo!

Go Andy!!!

Disclosure: This post waswritten in association with Ladbrokes. Any opinions expressed are my own.

But they aren't all froth you know. This is a serious business! Rangecookers.co.uk have launched a cupcake competition and the prize is a ........ yes you guessed it a range cooker.

Now I'm not usually a fan of blogger competitions, but this one is with a brand I trust, it has a great prize and the winning entry is decided by a panel of judges. I just happen to be one of those judges.

Basically, what you need to do is blog a cupcake recipe with photos, mention the Rangecookers.co.uk brand and this competition to help spread
the word further and encourage more parents to cook with their
children.

Entries must be in by 12 August 2013.

Head over to the competition page for more details, but before you do that, scroll down and wee Cooper will take you through our recipe.

Cooper is always eager to do a spot of baking, so when I said we were going to make cupcakes together, he said he would like to make some for his daddy.

As you know by now my hubby is vegan, so vegan cupcakes they had to be, but I felt they still needed buttercream, even if it had to be faux buttercream.

My cupcakes are flavoured with Clark's Canadian Maple Syrup. I was lucky enough to try the whole set of syrups and they are great for baking, although they are really high quality, so they are great on pancakes too.

There's just something a bit special about maple syrup, isn't there and it brings a great flavour to these cupcakes. More maple recipes to come.

1. Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/350f/gas mark 4.2. Line a cupcake or muffin tray with 12 cases.
3. Mix all the wet ingredients and set aside for a few minutes.4. Sieve the dry ingredients together in another bowl, then pour in the wet ingredients and mix together until just combined.5. Dollop spoonfuls of the mixture into the cases, then bake for 20-25 minutes until golden.6. Move to a cooling rack and once cool, decorate with faux buttercream, sprinkles and sweeties.7. Enjoy!

Details

Total time: 35 mins Yield:12 cupcakes

Notes:

I didn't add the recipe for buttercream, as it is a dollop, then a sprinkle kind of a thing.

Just take a large dollop of dairy free spread, then add icing
sugar, beat it in, and keep adding more until the texture is right. I
added some food colouring right at the beginning, and a little splosh of
soy milk at the end to loosen it up a bit for piping.

Honestly, it is dead
simple. just keep beating. You don't need a recipe.

Disclosure: I wrote this post on behalf of Rangecookers.co.uk. I am one of the judges in this competition, but I was not required to write a positive review and any opinions expressed are my own. I am being compensated for being a judge, but this post was not paid for. I was also sent some Clark's maple syrup to try, again my views are my own.

Janet got brain freeze drinking this smoothie. As she says herself. Slow down Janet! Although sometimes that is hard to do with something so delicious.

I too got brain freeze this week when eating some fresh ice cream from Mardo's here in Girne, Cyprus. Boy it was painful! But the best ice cream. I had a scoop of Snickers, a scoop of cheesecake and a scoop of blackberry sorbet. Heavenly!

I digress, back to the smoothie.

For this refreshing smoothie, that you must drink slowly, Janet teamed up Strawberries with cucumber, some dairy free milk, vanilla and lemon.

When I first saw this entry I thought it was a new blogger and indeed the blog has only been going for a few months, but then I went to the about me page and was delighted to see it was my blogger friend Dana. She was back!

Dana used to write Beside Pizza with her daughter Kay. Their last proper post was in 2009 and I was sad not to hear anything more from them, so this is happy news indeed.

Yes indeed Elizabeth has used enough veg in her smoothie for all of us!

She is a mum after my own heart and sneaks lots of good stuff into smoothies for her children. I find this works particularly well with Cooper. Spinach, carrots and avocado being my favourite additions. I've never tried adding broccoli or celery before, but I am super tempted as this smoothie looks so, so very delicious. Elizabeth likens it to Kool-aid. but I have never tasted that myself. It also contains pineapple, apples and ice.

For my entry, I made a green smoothie. It almost looks like it is bubbly in that photo. All it needs it a cauldron to look like a witch's brew.

It had just been whizzed up in my vitamix, so it was still light and bubbly. I served it up in my gorgeous glass cappuccino cup and saucer from Whittard to add a bit of elegance. My smoothie was strawberries, spinach, cucumber, apple juice and wheatgrass powder for some extra nutritious oomph!

I'd be tempted to call Corina a wuss, but I am very glad she joined in and she is even thinking of using spinach next. So I don't want to put her off.

You see Corina was almost put off joining this challenge because of the veg element, but she took inspiration from a wee baby who loved avocado and banana, so she started then and added some nutella, yoghurt and a little milk. She was very impressed with her smoothie.

Please join me in encouraging Corina to add spinach to her next smoothie!

Lisa starts this smoothie at night by soaking the oats in yoghurt at room temperature. Then in the morning it's just a quick whizz. Oats, yoghurt, beets with greens, apple, orange juice, ginger, almond milk, honey and ice cubes.

How delicious does that look?

So that is up for this month.

10 wonderful smoothies to whizz up and try.

Do take the time to visit some of the blogs and give some comment love.

Please vote for your favourite smoothie, you will see the voting poll in the sidebar. As usual, Lisa and I are not eligible for a vote.

Come back at the end of the month to find out which will be the winning smoothie and thanks to everyone who entered.

I always have a tub of Total Greek Yoghurt in my fridge. A stonking big one at that. I use it for desserts, smoothies, baking and cooking. It's one of my staples. So I was keen to try their new Fruyo range. A quick tweet and they sent me this picnic pack of yoghurts. Result!

Fruyo is their new range of fruit yoghurts, which are fat free, gluten-free and suitable for vegetarians.

The yoghurts come in vanilla, pineapple, peach and cherry.

The pineapple was my favourite, it was really lush and so flavourful. I also loved the peach and Vanilla. The vanilla had the real flavour of vanilla, not that fake sweet flavour. However, I won't be buying the cherry one again, it just wasn't for me.

The pots are 170g and come in at 82 calories. They are thick and satisfying enough for me to have for lunch with a piece of fruit on my fast days.

You might have noticed from my smoothie posts, that i like to serve my smoothies with a paper straw.

Apart from the fact they look bonnie in photos, they are also much nicer to drink out of than plastic. Cooper loves them.

I am always on the search for some cheap paper straws and I found these beauties on Amazon. They also do these in red yellow and black. For some reason the red straws are cheaper.

RRP £1.20 (99p delivery charge)

Score 9/10

3. JUST EAT

We don't have many takeaways in this house, but we do have a notion for one now and again.

I have actually used this service before and found it useful, so I was happy to do a review for them.

Just in case you haven't used JUST EAT before, they are an online takeaway service. Just pop onto their website, pop in your postcode and have a browse. You can look at all the takeaway restaurants in your area, or thin the search down by selecting from:

Bangladeshi

Chinese

English

European

Fish & Chips

Indian

Italian

Kebabs

Lebanese

Mediterranean

Pakistani

Pizza

Sandwiches

Thai

Turkish

We decided to try some takeaway from their Chinese Takeaway Restaurants and plumped for the Mayfair Garden. When we landed on the restaurant page, we found the name and address of the restaurant, opening times, customer reviews and the menu.

I know you will be as nosey as I am so here is what the 5 of us had:

Pcs.

Name

Description

Unit Price

Total

1

X 26. Mini Vegetarian Spring Rolls (12)

(Starters) -

£ 2.70

£ 2.70

1

X 53. Deep Fried Onion Rings in Batter (12)

(Specials) -

£ 2.50

£ 2.50

1

X 65. Fried Rice (Regular)

(Side Dishes) -

£ 1.80

£ 1.80

2

X 75. Chopsticks

(Side Dishes) -

£ 1.00

£ 2.00

1

X 155. Tofu (Deep Fried) (In Batter)

(Sweet & Sour Dishes) -

£ 5.30

£ 5.30

+ Fried rice

£ 0.30

1

X 155. Tofu (Deep Fried) (In Batter)

(Sweet & Sour Dishes) -

£ 5.30

£ 5.30

+ Fried rice

£ 0.30

1

X 186. Kung Po Tofu

(Tofu Dishes) -

£ 5.00

£ 5.00

+ Boiled Rice

£ 0.00

1

X 153. Sweet & Sour Duck (Hong Kong Style)

(Sweet & Sour Dishes) -

£ 6.00

£ 6.00

+ Fried rice

£ 0.30

Delivery price:

£ 1.50

Total:

£ 33.00

With each main dish we were given further options of the type of rice or noodles we wanted.

To sum it up, we had a good experience with the service. It's great being able to browse through different menus and order online. If you haven't used a restaurant before, the reviews come in handy and we really enjoyed our meal.

RRP varies

Score 9/10

4. Tacos

You probably won't believe me, but I have never eaten tacos before.

Flour tortillas, yes all the time, but never tacos.

My first venture into tacoland came when I decided to have a try at making these Spicy Veggie Tacos.

The savoury mince contained within is soya mince, onion and bell peppers cooked in a plethora of spices.

The tacos were delicious. The soft spicy mince and peppers inside the crispy tacos on top of crisp,cool iceberg lettuce. I served them with homemade chunky guacamole, grated cheddar and sour cream.